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India’s high court docket on Monday restored life sentences for 11 Hindu males convicted of the gang rape of a Muslim girl in a case that turned a robust image of the widespread violence in opposition to Indian ladies and of communal tensions usually exacerbated by Indian politicians.
The sufferer, Bilkis Bano, was three months pregnant when she and 15 members of her household tried to flee their village in 2002 throughout Hindu-Muslim violence within the state of Gujarat, in western India. The chief minister of Gujarat on the time was Narendra Modi, who’s now the Indian prime minister.
Ms. Bano and her household got here underneath assault by closely armed Hindu rioters, who, along with raping Ms. Bano, additionally killed her 3-year-old daughter by smashing her head on a rock and raped her mom and a cousin.
On Monday, India’s Supreme Court docket stated that the Gujarat authorities had acted past its powers in granting the assailants early launch from jail in August 2022. The court docket ordered the criminals, who had been greeted by right-wing Hindu nationalists with sweets and garlands upon their return residence in 2022, to give up inside two weeks.
Vrinda Grover, a human rights lawyer primarily based in New Delhi, stated that the court docket’s choice amounted to “a scathing indictment of the state of Gujarat.”
The set off for the 2002 riots, which left greater than 1,000 lifeless, most of them Muslims, was a practice hearth that killed dozens of Hindu pilgrims. Mr. Modi has lengthy been accused of getting turned a blind eye to, and even inspired, the mob violence, although the Supreme Court docket has cleared him of the allegations.
In 2008, a court docket sentenced 11 of 13 defendants within the Bano case to life imprisonment on expenses of homicide and gang rape.
When the federal government in Gujarat, which is run by Mr. Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Social gathering, ordered the discharge of the convicts in 2022, it was extensively seen as an effort to rally the get together’s Hindu-right base earlier than a state election. The Indian residence affairs minister, Amit Shah, thought of Mr. Modi’s right-hand man, permitted the Gujarat choice. The B.J.P. went on to win the state election.
After the 11 males have been launched, Ms. Bano stated, “I’ll stand and combat once more, in opposition to what’s mistaken and for what is correct.”
On Monday, the Supreme Court docket justices wrote that they’d thought of whether or not a discount in sentence was acceptable in circumstances of crimes comparable to these dedicated in opposition to Ms. Bano. They stated that the lads had misplaced their proper to liberty as soon as they’d been convicted and imprisoned and that the Gujarat authorities had lacked the authority to scale back the sentence as a result of the trial had been shifted from Gujarat to Mumbai.
“The first responsibility of the court docket is to uphold justice and rule of regulation,” the justices wrote in an order. “Justice encompasses not simply the rights of the convicts but in addition the rights of the victims.”
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